the conversation

People with dementia aren’t currently eligible for voluntary assisted dying. Should they be?

Dementia is the second leading cause of death for Australians aged over 65. More than 421,000 Australians currently live with dementia and this figure…

Terminal lucidity: why do loved ones with dementia sometimes ‘come back’ before death?

Yen Ying Lim, Monash University and Diny Thomson, Monash University Dementia is often described as “the long goodbye”. Although the…

‘I hope publishers will be brave’: Older women are often erased in fiction – but in two new Australian novels they take centre stage

Carol Lefevre, University of Adelaide If older women move through the world with a sense of being unseen, in the…

NSW may end its COVID vaccine mandate for health workers. That doesn’t mean it was a bad idea in the first place

Katie Attwell, The University of Western Australia and Jessica Kaufman, Murdoch Children's Research Institute Months after COVID vaccines were introduced…

Changes are coming for Australia’s aged care system. Here’s what we know so far

Michael Woods, University of Technology Sydney and Eugenia Tsihlis, University of Technology Sydney Australia’s subsidised aged care services now help…

How does Australia’s health system stack up internationally? Not bad, if you’re willing to wait for it

Stephen Duckett, The University of Melbourne When things are going bad in the health system, we are reassured we’ve got…

Albanese tax plan will give average earner $1500 tax cut – more than double Morrison’s Stage 3

A person on the average annual wage of $73,000 will get a tax cut of more than $1500 a year…

If you’re 65 or over and want to work, you’re far better off in New Zealand than Australia

Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Want to keep working after you’ve reached pension age? The…

I was a geriatrician on Old People’s Home for Teenagers. Here’s why I joined this TV experiment

Many people will have heard about “intergenerational practice” via the TV. This is the purposeful bringing together of different generations,…